Wael Sakr
Office Address
Dean’s Office
School of Medicine
Wayne State University
Administrative Contact
Angela GoodwillAssistant to Wael Sakr, MD
Dean, School of Medicine
Wayne State University
Phone: 313-577-7742
Position Title
Dean School of Medicine
Education Training
M.D. (1980): University of Damascus, Damascus, Syria
Fellowship
1985-1987: Harper Hospital, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI, USA, in Surgical Pathology
Areas of Interest
Prostate cancer, surgical pathology, urologic pathology, head and neck pathology
Research
Wael Sakr, M.D., is the dean of the Wayne State University School of Medicine.
Dr. Sakr oversees the Office of Medical Education, the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the recruitment and evaluation of department chairs, the recruitment and evaluation of School of Medicine-based center directors, and the development and implementation of compensation models for faculty.
Dr. Sakr is a nationally recognized academic pathologist with a track record of independent and collaborative National Institutes of Health funding and with seminal contributions in the field of genitourinary neoplasia, prostate cancer in particular. He has also assumed leadership roles in professional and community-based organizations, including the National Arab American Medical Association and the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services.
He has been interested in the histopathological and biological traits of preneoplastic changes of the prostate. His work contributed to a current consensus that high grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasm is a precursor of prostate adenocarcinoma. Dr. Sakr has been involved in numerous clinical trials as an expert pathologist. In other clinical studies, he is evaluating genetic changes and expression profiling as markers for cancer diagnosis and prognosis. In addition, Dr. Sakr is an active investigator on several funded basic research projects on the underlying molecular mechanism of prostate tumor progression and metastasis.
Research Interests
Urological malignancies, preneoplastic diseases, prostate, molecular markers, and cancer biology
Residency
1982-1985: Booth Memorial Hospital, New York University, New York, NY, USA
Publications
1. Sakr WA, 1998, High‑grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia: additional links to a potentially more aggressive prostate cancer? [editorial; comment] J Natl Cancer Inst; 90:486‑487.
2. Yin, S, Li, X, Meng, Y. Finley, RL Jr, Sakr, W, Yang, H, Reddy, N, and Sheng, S, 2005, Tumor suppressive maspin regulates cell response to oxidative stress by direct Interaction with glutathione s-transferase, J. Biol. Chem. 280: 4985-96.
3. Marshall, JR, Sakr, WA, Wood, D, Berry, D, Tangen, C, Parker, F, Thompson, I, Lippman, SM, Lieberman, R, Alberts, D, Jarrard, D, Coltman, C, Greenwald, P, Minasian, L, and Crawford, ED, 2006, Design and progress of a trial of selenium to prevent prostate cancer among men with high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia, Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, 15: 1479-84.
4. Li, X, Yin, S, Sakr, W, Meng, Y, Zhao, Z, and Sheng, S, 2006, Endogenous inhibition of histone deacetylase 1 by tumor suppressive maspin, Cancer Res, 66: 9330-7.
5. Rahman KM, Banerjee S, Ali S, Ahmad A, Wang Z, Kong D and Sakr W, 2009, DIM enhances Taxotere-induced apoptosis in hormone-refractory prostate cancer cells through survivin down-regulation, Cancer Res, 69: 4468-75.